


Tangent

by megyal



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-07-03
Updated: 2006-07-03
Packaged: 2017-10-26 20:52:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/287735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/megyal/pseuds/megyal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Philosophical waxings in the night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tangent

_In plane geometry, a straight line is tangent to a curve, at some point, if both line and curve pass through the point with the same direction; such a line is the best straight-line approximation to the curve at that point. The curve, at point P, has the same slope as a tangent passing through P._

There were a few times when Pete, not wanting to feel as frivolous as he thought he was, just went on the internet and typed in a word or a concept he wanted to know about.

Any word.

Any concept.

He wasn't as silly as a lot of people thought he was. Behind that braying laugh and over-drama, there was a surprisingly quick mental process.

Joe said he could be a pretty sharp International Spy. _If_ he wasn't so short.

Tonight's word, tonight's _concept_ was _tangent_. He had seen the word wasting away on a billboard somewhere and decided to do it some justice by actually reminding himself what it really meant, because he had some vague memory of it popping up somewhere in Calculus. He gazed steadily at the little image under the explanation in the online encyclopaedia: There was a broadly curving thick black line, wafting confidently through white space. Another line, this one red, straight and sure, plowed through the same area with a different sort of self-assurance. A black dot stamped to very spot where the two lines met....this ostentatious dot was labeled P.

 _P._

 _P....._

 _Patrick...._

 _Peter....._

Pete started to wax philosophical, leaning his head back and fixing an unseeing stare at the ceiling. What if....what if he had never met Patrick? What if the self-imposed insanity of his life hadn't intersected with the calm steadiness of Patrick's, on that P, where P=Patrick opening the door to his house dressed in the most abominable get-up ever seen?

Pete suddenly felt a little dizzy.

The outlet for his jittery sharp words, wrapped up in Patrick's soothing and sturdy melodies, would not exist.

The screaming fans, the 'worldwind' (he didn't quite remember which one of them coined that word; maybe it was Andy) tours, the albums and the tv specials...these would not even be thought of...(Pete thought that this may or may not be such a bad thing.)

He probably would have finished college, put aside his bass, and succumbed to the Office.

And Patrick probably would have done something fairly awesome, or mundane. With that voice and that personality, it could have gone either way.

His heart would have gone on beating.

...how much would he be really _living_?

Thinking about the concept of tangent some more, he suddenly grinned toothily. The definition had said _at some point._.....which meant...it was _inevitable_. The hopeful calculations in his brain came up with _destined_.

He lifted his head up and looked at that black dot (P?!) again.

One day.

One hour.

One moment focused in that single black point, and suddenly that black curve and that red line were just the same and just that amazingly different.

He leaned forward impulsively and placed a kiss on the screen right where P was.

"Pete?"

He pulled back, smiling softly and turning at the sound of Patrick's sleepy voice coming from the doorway.

"Pete. What are you doing?"

"Hey....nothing. Just thinking."

Patrick stared at him, and then gave a light smile.

"Don't overload your brain, dude. Let's go to bed."

Pete closed down the screen of the laptop, went to wrap himself up in self-assured warmth that was all Patrick, and dreamt of crazy curves, steady lines, and massively important dots.


End file.
